​I had chickpea pasta for the first time ever tonight. This was an event even after having already tried green lentil pasta, black bean pasta and other veggie pastas. I have to say I've liked them all... but I had a special feeling about chickpea pasta. The brand I purchased was Explore Cuisine and after it's trip home from the grocery store it sat in my cabinet for two weeks. 

After tonight, I can officially say that chickpea pasta and I are a match made in fluffy fusilli heaven. Firstly, I love chickpeas... secondly, I like pasta. This blend is a well-done best of both worlds. Strangely enough you can eat it even without sauce! It already naturally has 'creamy / sticky' texture to it after boiling.  Before I adopted a vegan diet, I did come to know the texture of 'egg noodles' and I would compare chickpea pasta in some ways to them! (only a much better alternative in so many ways).

Add all of the above with the fact that you drop some of the guilt (there are carbs in this but not quite as many) of eating traditional heavy pasta while picking up more protein and you've got a winning replacement for your usual pasta lunches and dinners for sure.

After cooking per the box instructions, to dress this pasta I added a very small amount of olive oil (you don't have to add much), olives, spinach leaves, tomato, and red onions. Delicious, easy and healthy... though you wouldn't know it. You feel like you're just eating rich pasta. This is also a shoo-in noodle for creamy / cheezy plantbased sauces too. (Though I've loved them I can't really say that about the other veggie pastas I've had).

Cook time (after the water reaches boiling point) is 11-12 minutes.

Chip & Kale is a Pittsburgh PA area based meal service that offers delicious meal kits.  After months of peeping the food on their website that looked delicious, I thought I'd finally give ordering a try!  The meal kits comes in convenient bags that you can definitely wash out and reuse if you'd like. Each ingredient is pre-measured and the instructions are on the front of the bag.

When you order from Chip & Kale, you will get 5 meal kits that meant to make 4 servings each for around $110! This works out to around $5.50 per meal which is pretty economical when you think about it... and your cooking and menu planning is made easy for that price to boot. Just be aware that if you have a pretty big appetite however and eat two meals per serving, your meals make work out to be a little higher per meal. (I.E. If you eat 2 servings at meal time usually, your kits will work out to serving you ten times instead of twenty).  My husband and I found that, with our appetites (and his is a big one!) that our weekly kit made us about 15-20 safely - pretty cool! Each meal kit is plant-based (YUM) and vegan friendly and these are meals anyone would enjoy.  One simple criticism people not picking up their meals and having them shipped may have is that the shipping packaging does include packing foam etc. to keep your kits cold.  If you are looking for zero-waste rather than vegan eating, this is not going to be for you.. however, my husband and I found this service and amazing value with delicious cruelty-free meals and we think that rocks / makes a huge impact in itself. 

We made our kits around dinner time and used the leftovers for lunches. You can leave the bags in your freezer for a while so you don't have to make them all at once or even every day!  This means that on week's order could theoretically easily last you two weeks.

I started out with this very easy Chickpea salad kit. The cool thing about this chickpea salad is that it has spicy twist.  It included cranberries, spices, chickpeas (of course), hummus, and celery.  Here's a video of my first experience / attempt below. I did this on a cooler winter day as you can tell by the scarf and hat.  Try to focus on the delicious chickpea salad instead. ;)

By the way, these meals would make excellent wedding gift, house or apartment warming gift, or gift for someone new to cooking plant-based meals.  Aside from being delicious, they make the learning experience super easy!

TOFU TERIYAKI TACOS - Made with a Chip & Kale Meal Kit

CRANBERRY & CHICKPEA SALAD SANDWICH - Made with a Chip & Kale meal kit

BUFFALO TEMPEH BOWL - Made with a Chip & Kale Meal Kit

APPLE SAUSAGE (vegan) AND FARRO BOWL - Made with a Chip & Kale meal kit

PEANUT BURGERS WITH RELISH GLAZE ON A PRETZILLA BUN - Made with a Chip & Kale Meal Kit

TAQUITOS & SALSA - Made with a Chip & Kale Meal Kit

SPICY TEMPEH & BAGEL WITH BEAN SALAD - Made with a Chip & Kale meal kit

Did you like this post or find it helpful? Want to try Chip & Kale? Please feel free to use my referral link here! I really appreciate it! - Order through Melissa's link: â€‹

Melissa's Chip & Kale Referral link